In what should have shocked nobody attending Gulf Power Company's economic symposium last October, Gov. Rick Scott, minutes after taking the stage inside the conference room at the Sheraton Bay Point Resort in Panama City Beach, fixated his speech on a common foil he loves to jab when waxing enthusiastic on Florida's economy: the state of Texas and its former governor, Rick Perry.

After a throng of Florida Panhandle business executives and administrators greeted the governor with a standing ovation, Scott, sporting a black suit, white shirt and grapefruit-colored tie, transported the audience back to 2010, shortly after he had won election.

"My good friend Rick Perry, I sat down with him right after I got elected and I said, 'My job is to kick your rear,'" Scott said. "He laughed. He said, 'You lost 800,000 plus jobs.' Everybody nationwide knew what was going on in Florida. We were becoming the 'Sunset State.' He said during the recession, Texas added 200,000 jobs. He says, 'I'll act like I'm worried if you tell people you're going to kick my rear.'"

Like starting a football game already behind several touchdowns, Florida's economy faced no easy task in reversing the momentum. But in the years between his inauguration and 2016, Scott boasted to the audience that the tide had shifted — a fact he had spared no opportunity in reminding Perry.

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Although the states share many common aspects, Texas' competitive retail energy market is in stark contrast to Florida's traditional structure of investor-owned monopoly utilities. (Joseph Baucum/jbaucum@pnj.com)
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Gulf Power Transmission equipment in the Warrington area.(Photo: Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com)

"I've called him like 17 months in a row now and let him know that Florida has beaten Texas in the number of jobs created every month for that period of time," said Scott, unabashed with pride.

Those who have heard Scott speak know the governor wastes little time in pitting Florida against Texas. When comparing the states, the similarities between both make it easy to understand why.

Beyond the obvious tale of two Ricks, both rank among the three most populous states in the country, according to the latest Census Bureau estimates. The magazine Chief Executive awarded Florida as the second-best state for business in 2016, one spot behind winner Texas. Each exhibits a significant conservative influence, as well as a coast along the Gulf of Mexico. Both have been governed by a Bush.

But resemblances aside, for a Republican governor who is always eager to battle against his friendly foe to the west, Scott, who declined to respond to multiple interview requests from the News Journal, falls silent on one notable difference between the states.

So the question remains. In a state where the majority of ratepayers are beholden to monopoly energy utilities, why has Scott, unlike Texas, abstained from pushing for competition in retail electricity?

Texas Florida power

(Photo: Andy Marlette/amarlette@pnj.com)

From Lone Star to lone choice

In Florida, the majority of ratepayers live in the service area of one of four investor-owned monopolies: Florida Power & Light Company, Duke Energy of Florida, Tampa Electric or Gulf Power. Based on the most recent figures from the Energy Information Administration, the four companies supply power to about 75 percent of the state's customers. Unlike almost every other product one purchases such as groceries or clothing, consumers have only one choice when deciding which company to patronize for electricity.

Those who have never lived outside of the state may lack the awareness that other states differ in their approach. But for residents who lived in Texas before migrating to the Sunshine State, the ability to select their electricity provider is an amenity fondly remembered but no longer afforded.

Kristi Blue, a Pensacola resident, moved to the state with her husband and three children in summer 2012. She and her family had lived in Wylie, Texas, about a half-hour drive northeast of Dallas, but uprooted to Florida to be closer to her husband's family.

They initially rented a house in Beulah, about 20 minutes northwest of Pensacola. During the process of setting up utilities, Blue and her husband were told they had to sign up with Gulf Power for their home's electricity.

Contractors are building a new substation for Gulf Power in the Bellview area May 1, 2017.(Photo: Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com)

In Texas, Blue could choose from a range of different companies. In fact, in the regions of the state that allow competition today, as many as 50 providers offer what can amount to 300 different residential plans. Blue had assumed Florida had a similar arrangement, but she followed the instructions given to her.

After the first couple of months when she said the household's bill was as high as $340, Blue and her husband figured they could switch from Gulf Power to another company. In Texas, she said the monthly electricity bill was never more than $200 for about the same amount of usage. They had previously gone with the Austin-based Green Mountain Energy, a company that relies completely on renewable energy. They also routinely had competing providers offering them incentives to change service, such as $50 gift cards and low kilowatt-hour (kWh) charges.

Blue dialed Gulf Power's customer service to inform the company the family intended to sign up with a different provider. In that moment, she learned about Florida's structure of monopoly utilities.

"We said we would take our business elsewhere," she said. "They said, 'There is no other business here.'"

Contractors are building a new substation for Gulf Power in the Bellview area May 1, 2017.(Photo: Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com)

Blain Fowler, another Texan-turned-Floridian, experienced a similar phenomenon with his family's bill. Fowler, who was born in Fredericksburg, Texas, but later moved to other regions of the country, returned with his wife and three children to his home state in fall 2015. They settled in Spring, a suburb north of Houston.

Having moved from Wisconsin, which like Florida maintains a monopoly system with its energy utilities, he was initially overwhelmed by the number of choices for his provider. A website operated by the Public Utility Commission of Texas, known as Power to Choose, assisted to some degree. Through the website, he could enter his ZIP code, see what plans were available in his area, learn how much each plan charged per kWh and ultimately select a provider.

In the end, the family elected to go with the Houston-headquartered Champion Energy. Living in a 1,800-square-foot house, he said they never paid more than $100 a month for electricity.

The family moved to Gulf Breeze in June to open a gymnastics facility. Although the size of their new house is comparable to their former home, their monthly electricity bill, also through Gulf Power, has been as high as $180.

"We have about the same energy usage with roughly the same house size," Fowler said. "I thought the bill amounts would be roughly the same, but it turned out to not be the case."

“I thought the bill amounts would be roughly the same, but it turned out to not be the case.”

Blain Fowler, Texan-turned-Floridian

Not all who have relocated from Texas have witnessed an increase in their electricity bill. Debbie Tullos, a Pensacola property manager who moved with her husband to the city in 2013, said the couple averaged about $125 on their monthly statement while in Cypress, a community northwest of Houston where they lived for more than six years. They now average about $100 each month through Gulf Power.

But Tullos said the price drop was expected. They went from residing in a 2,500-square-foot house in Cypress to a 1,200-square-foot condo in Pensacola.

Similarly to Fowler, Tullos and her husband had lived in a state with a monopoly system, Mississippi, before moving to Texas. After arriving, the couple chose to sign up with Reliant Energy, one of the largest providers in the state, rather than opting for a smaller competitor in the Houston market.

"The unknown was what kept us from making a change right off the bat," she said. "We had always had one electric company, so we didn't know how the service would be. But after we had lived there, we saw that our friends were very pleased with the service of the smaller companies."

Contractors are building a new substation for Gulf Power in the Bellview area May 1, 2017.(Photo: Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com)

A brave competitive world

To be clear, although Texas allows for competition in various regions of the state, it is not some promised land where the electrons flow like milk and honey at no cost. Electricity, just as in any part of the country, arrives at a price.

Furthermore, despite positive accounts from those who have lived in competitive markets, the evidence remains murky over whether or not competition truly drives down costs for all consumers. For every report that supports competition correlating with cheaper energy, another exists that proclaims the opposite effect.

But for a product that must be purchased because it is vital for daily living, several connected to the industry said consumers, through competition, at least can decide which company they will trust to fulfill their needs.

Ted Kury, director of energy studies at the University of Florida's Public Utility Research Center, said a natural starting point for when competition in retail energy manifested is 1996, when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a set of rules that allowed states the option to deregulate their markets.

Prior to this, energy utilities had always existed as vertically-integrated monopolies, an arrangement where the company owned each portion of the supply chain. Under this system, the utilities controlled three primary functions of energy production. They generated electricity at power plants, transmitted and distributed it over the grid and sold it to local ratepayers. To prevent the monopolies from gouging customers, state utility commissions were established to regulate the companies to ensure electricity was generated and supplied at the lowest cost possible.

Following FERC's ruling, several states enacted laws to deregulate, a process that involved "unbundling" the three aforementioned responsibilities. Because states did not want a mass of power lines strung to every building, transmission and distribution remained a regulated monopoly utility. But generation and sales opened to competitors.

Kury added that the term "deregulation" is really a misnomer. He instead prefers to describe the process of allowing for competition as "restructuring." He explained that deregulating did not abolish rules on the safety or costs of retail energy. It basically allowed ratepayers to shop for energy, while suppliers made that electricity available to distribution utilities.

"Restructuring doesn't affect the flow of electricity, it affects the flow of money," Kury said. "It doesn't mean you're going to have several wires strung to your house. The only thing affected is the supply portion of your bill."

In Texas, lawmakers authorized legislation in 1999 to deregulate the retail markets in regions that previously included only an investor-owned monopoly utility. The regions with a municipal utility or electric cooperative were allowed to choose if they wanted to also participate, and in 2002 the state opened to competition.

In its assessment this year to lawmakers on the scope of competition in the state’s electricity markets, the Public Utility Commission of Texas reported 92 percent of residents in the five regions that allow for competition have now switched from what was the monopoly utility to a competitor.

Because the providers offer a horde of plans with varying options, it is almost impossible to juxtapose Texas' competitive prices in a head-to-head comparison against Florida's monopolies. But to explain the benefits behind competition, executives from rival energy providers have said that rather than cheaper electricity costs, the most substantial impact to consumers has been an infusion of products and services from which to select.

"In a competitive environment, you've got to be better than your competitor, be able to one-up the competition, provide better customer service, better insight and better options," said Mark Parsons, vice president and general manager of Green Mountain Energy, a subsidiary of NRG Energy. "In a regulated world, they don’t have that."

Gulf Power Company transmission equipment is pictured in the Warrington area.(Photo: Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com)

At the heart of competition, Parsons stressed that the onus for how much customers pay and what services they receive has shifted away from what a monopoly utility is willing to offer. It now depends primarily on how educated ratepayers are on what they choose to buy.

Besides a traditional plan that charges a standard price per kWh, Green Mountain Energy offers time-of-use plans where electricity costs more during the day but is free at night. Customers who shift the bulk of their usage accordingly can reap savings. The company similarly provides plans with free weekends.

It has packages that include a free Nest Learning Thermostat, which customers can use to remotely control their properties' air conditioning from a smartphone, tablet or laptop. The company, which purchases electricity predominantly from wind energy generators, also has an option where customers can contribute to an initiative to advance solar energy.

Cullen Hay, general manager of Houston-based Direct Energy, echoed Parsons' stance on competition breeding options. His company, which includes about 700,000 residential customers in Texas, also offers time-of-use plans with periods of free electricity and packages that include free smart devices. He said the options are necessary for attracting customers. As the competitive industry has evolved, price is no longer enough.

"It's about offering bundles, value-adding services, smart devices, longer-term contracts with time of use," he said. “"Because there's such a hyper competitiveness in Texas right now, it has asked every supplier to get creative in how they will bring in the next customer."

With competitors unrelenting in their attempts to gain an edge, Hay said one byproduct has been a more informed consumer. Realizing that the more educated they are, the better odds they have of finding a satisfactory deal, Hay said customers' knowledge on how their habits impact energy consumption has grown.

"Competition is not foreign to them," he said. "People know they have a choice, and the numbers are growing all the time. They accept they need to choose, and when their contracts expire, they're going to hunt for the next big deal."

“People know they have a choice, and the numbers are growing all the time.”

Cullen Hay, Direct Energy general manager

Although Florida ratepayers lack the same scope of volition, a few alternatives to the monopolies' standard rate plans exist. For example, residential customers with Gulf Power and Florida Power & Light can select time-of-use plans that include variable prices. Florida Power & Light's commercial customers can also choose the plan. Depending on what time of day energy is used, the cost could be more or less than the standard rate. The plans do not include free stretches of electricity.

Should Florida or any other state entertain the possibility of deregulating, it would have to first take several steps to prepare for the change. Frank Caliva, a spokesman for The American Coalition of Competitive Energy Suppliers in Washington, D.C., said a key factor would be organizing a structured wholesale market where providers and generators could more easily meet to buy and sell electricity.

He added that another step would be to identify the companies that would serve as default providers, the providers that are the last resort for economically disadvantaged customers. Under a regulated structure, the monopolies are the default providers. In a restructured setting, those providers would need to be established.

Caliva said competition could lead to lower prices, but much of that depends on the nature of the individual marketplace. But he emphasized that value is realized in customers' increased command of their energy.

"There is value in what type of energy is used and how the energy is used," Caliva said. "Whether it's electricity or an app that tracks calories or finances, people want to have more granular control over their lives."

The other side to competition

On the other side of the argument, officials from Florida's monopoly utilities, as well as third-party experts, have asserted that deregulating a market could open a territory to consequences beyond healthy competition.

Under deregulation, they argued the focus on electricity generation could dwindle as companies become more obsessed with selling energy than creating it. As a result, there could be more blackouts and unreliability.

"In Florida, our prices are low under our current structure that we have, and our reliability is excellent," said Jim Fletcher, Gulf Power vice president of external affairs and corporate services.

Fletcher noted the Houston-based Enron Corp. was a leading national proponent of states deregulating in the late 1990s. Enron declared bankruptcy in 2001 after admitting it falsely reported income and equity value. Thousands of investors, including most of its employees, lost billions of dollars when the dust settled.

"So to me, part of the issue is what problem are you trying to solve by deregulating?" Fletcher said. "You have low prices. You have excellent reliability. So to me, our regulatory system is working well, especially when I look at Texas and other states that have deregulated on some comparative basis."

Fletcher said the common assumption is that storms and cold weather are the primary culprits for outages. But he speculated many retail providers in Texas have probably narrowly avoided rolling blackouts on many occasions as a result of minuscule reserves to meet peak demand on the grid.

Contractors build a new substation for Gulf Power Company in the Bellview area on May 1, 2017.(Photo: Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com)

"It's not just Texas," he said. "If you look at most of the states and compared deregulated versus regulated, their reliability is much less because of the lack of investment, because of the market structure. And their prices are a lot higher than what we experience."

David Spence, a professor at The University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business and School of Law, concurred to an extent. Spence, who co-authored the energy law casebook "Energy, Economics and the Environment," said in the long term, competitors' desire to win customers creates less price certainty. Instability in retail sales could then trickle down to the companies generating electricity and discourage plant owners from building new generation sources or from being readily available.

"You run the risk of having supply shortages unless you do something else to incentivize power plant owners who aren't there very often to be there during peak demand," Spence said. "Here in Texas, we struggle with that a little bit."

Kury said that when analyzing energy costs, the component consumers often overlook is reliability. He said the Florida Public Service Commission, which regulates the state's monopolies, factors in the costs of generating reserve energy when authorizing the utilities' rates. But customers typically forget about this aspect.

"What I think we lose track of is that in maintaining reliability when you're paying for service, you're not just paying for the kilowatt-hours," Kury said. "You're paying for them to be available on demand."

In perhaps the ultimate example of compromised reliability, he pointed to the 2000-2001 California energy crisis, where retail prices skyrocketed and temporary blackouts enveloped the state about two years after it had installed a new wholesale power market and consumer choice program. Kury said the fiasco "put a damper on restructuring" for many other states.

Florida Power & Light declined multiple interview requests for this story, and Tampa Electric did not respond to multiple interview requests. But in an email, Duke Energy spokeswoman Peveeta Persaud also emphasized the role reliability plays in costs.

"Our rates cover the costs necessary to produce and deliver reliable power to our 1.8 million customers who rely on electricity as part of their daily lives," she said. "Only costs deemed by the commission to be reasonable and prudent may be charged to customers."

Contractors are building a new substation for Gulf Power in the Bellview area May 1, 2017.(Photo: Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com)

To defend the regulated structure, Gulf Power officials cited the annual report from the Texas Coalition for Affordable Power, a nonprofit composed of cities and political groups that advocates for affordable electricity. It reported in its latest assessment that "Texans living in deregulated areas would have saved nearly $25 billion dollars in lower residential electricity bills from 2002 through 2014 had they paid the same average prices during that period as Texans living outside deregulation."

The utility also pointed to a recent ranking compiled by Wired Group, a Colorado-based consulting firm, that awarded Gulf Power the eighth spot for customer value rankings among 100 investor-owned utilities in the country. The firm evaluated the utilities based on performance data from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and marketing information services company J.D. Power.

But Spence explained that because of the difficulty in distinguishing the effects of competition on prices from the impact of generators' fuel mix as well as fuel costs, no definitive consensus exists on if deregulating increases or decreases retail rates. In other words, competition coinciding with higher prices could be more correlation than causation.

He added that in contrast to the coalition and Gulf Power, another contingent has reached the opposite conclusion.

"On the other side are most academic economists and allied pro-restructuring groups, who believe just as firmly that competition brings down prices, all else equal," Spence said.

To support deregulation, the Austin-based Association of Electric Companies of Texas reported residential prices in Texas' five competitive regions dropped 5-20 percent from the end of 2001 — before the start of competition — to fall 2016. The figures are based on 12-month fixed offers for residential customers who consume on average 1,000 kWh each month.

The association, a trade organization that includes many of the state's energy providers, also reported that from 2008-2015, electricity complaints to the Public Utility Commission of Texas declined 60 percent from more than 15,000 to about 6,000. The stats seemingly support the improvement of the state's reliability. Furthermore, according to the Texas commission's website, newly completed sources of generation from 1995 to the start of this year have resulted in new capacity equaling 68,997 megawatts (MW). The retired sources from 2002 to this year amounted to a decrease of 15,357 MW.

Based on data from the Energy Information Administration, Texas has beaten Florida six times over the last decade in cheaper residential electricity, including the last three years. Texas has also provided significantly more affordable commercial and industrial energy than Florida over the last eight years, according to the administration.

Gulf Power Company transmission equipment is pictured in the Warrington area.(Photo: Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com)

But despite the clashing viewpoints on deregulation, all agree that under Florida’s traditional structure, consumer costs are at the discretion of the Florida Public Service Commission. The utilities must file proposed rates with the commission. The commission then reviews the petitions' merits. In a recent case, Gulf Power filed a petition with the Florida Public Service Commission in October for a rate increase that, if approved, would have netted the utility an additional $106.8 million in annual revenue.

With the new funds from ratepayers, the utility would have devoted $19.4 million to pay for its stake in a coal-burning plant primarily owned by its sister company, Georgia Power. Since the plant's inception in 1987, ratepayers had not paid for it because Gulf Power sold the electricity from the site on the wholesale market to other utilities.

The company recently changed course and rededicated most of the energy from the plant to serve retail customers. Gulf Power officials said it improved dependability for consumers, but critics of the plan pointed out that in the utility's own filings with the state, Gulf Power admitted it did not need the electricity from the plant to meet projections for its reserve margins. They argued the utility simply could not find new wholesale buyers and instead of eating the loss, shifted costs to ratepayers under the guise of what the utility maintains as a primary reason for preserving its monopoly status — reliability.

Gulf Powers officials have continued to stress that the electricity generated at the Georgia Power plant will benefit Florida ratepayers with better energy capacity. The utility ultimately settled its proposal with a deal that will garner the company $54.3 million in net additional revenue.

If the state was to ever deregulate the retail markets and allow for newcomers to compete with the monopoly utilities, Kury said Florida lawmakers would need to approve legislation to allow it and the governor would have to sign it into effect. The state's utility commission would then need to define rules on how companies could operate in the markets.

In May, Gainesville-based nonprofit Florida Energy Freedom filed a proposed amendment with the Florida Constitution Revision Commission to institute competition. The commission could decide to put the measure on the 2018 mid-term ballot. If voters were extended the opportunity to approve it, the Legislature would still need to authorize it.

Kury said until legislators seriously consider the possibility of deregulation, there is no use to entertain it.

"I always say the same thing," he said. "Until I see a bill in Tallahassee that has some sort of traction, I'm not going to worry about it. It starts with them."

Power

(Photo: Andy Marlette/amarlette@pnj.com)

Campaign contributions, amendments and favors

Tracking the flow of cash from industry groups to lawmakers can prove a dizzying exercise due to the channels at special interests' disposal.

A business could contribute directly to an individual campaign. Or it could write a check to a political committee, which then donates to the campaign. Or the committee could contribute to another committee, which funds a political party that disburses contributions to the campaigns of state party members, but only those in one legislative chamber.

However, this much is clear: Since the dawn of deregulation, Florida's investor-owned utilities have collectively contributed more to politicians than most athletes earn in a career in each of the four major American sports leagues.

From 1998-2016, the utilities combined to give at least $43.9 million in contributions to individual campaigns and several committees, according to figures from the National Institute on Money in State Politics. Florida Power & Light contributed $19 million, Duke Energy $7.7 million, Tampa Electric $13.8 million and Gulf Power $3.4 million.

The utilities did not discriminate in their contributions. They gave to lawmakers and groups in the companies' service territories and to those far outside of their areas. The recipients included the Republican Party of Florida, the Florida Democratic Party and representatives and senators in all regions of the state.

Gulf Power Company transmission equipment is pictured in the Warrington area.(Photo: Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com)

Not all committees were listed in the figures supplied by the institute. When factoring in the unlisted contributions, the donations would balloon even further. For example, Scott's committee Let's Get to Work was not listed among the recipients by the institute. But from 2015 to this year, Florida Power & Light contributed $135,000 to the governor's committee, Duke Energy $100,000, Tampa Electric $150,000 and Gulf Power $50,000, according to disclosures on the committee's website.

In one of the most expensive causes recently backed by the investor-owned utilities, the four companies united to pour at least $20.2 million into promotion for Amendment 1 in the run up to November's general election. The effort was not without controversy.

The amendment proposed to establish the right for ratepayers to install solar equipment on their property, but state statute had already granted that freedom. It also included the wording that state and local governments would "retain their abilities to protect consumer rights and public health, safety and welfare, and to ensure that consumers who do not choose to install solar are not required to subsidize the costs of backup power and electric grid access to those who do."

The utilities insisted the measure offered protections for customers, and they promoted it through their committee Consumers for Smart Solar. Opponents of the amendment, which included many environmental and consumer groups, countered that it sought to add language into the state constitution that would have hiked fees on solar users and kept out utilities' competitors in the solar energy market.

Less than a month before the election, it was revealed by the Miami Herald that a consultant hired by the utilities admitted at a conference in October that the utilities had tried to deceive voters. In a recording obtained by the Herald, Sal Nuzzo of the James Madison Institute in Tallahassee called the amendment "an incredibly savvy maneuver" that "would completely negate anything they (pro-solar interests) would try to do either legislatively or constitutionally down the road."

The amendment ultimately failed to receive the required 60 percent of the vote to pass.

Contractors build a new substation for Gulf Power Company in the Bellview area on May 1, 2017.(Photo: Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com)

Officials from the utilities described their contributions as a necessary component to their operations. Regarding Gulf Power's contributions, Fletcher pointed out that utilities are hardly alone in giving to campaigns and special interests. He said his company participates through the same conduit available to every other entity for engaging lawmakers. He maintained Amendment 1 was about consumer protections and stressed that the utility's legislative priorities center on policy to propel customer service and reliability.

"We work with tons of legislators," Fletcher said. "We have to work with all of them, whether they serve our service territory or not. If you look at the committee that regulates utilities, there are committee members on there from all over the state. You have to as a lobbyist for a utility company or for any business, you have to have relationships and work with all of those legislators."

Persaud echoed Fletcher's stance on Amendment 1, explaining Duke Energy backed the measure because it would have ensured solar energy was permitted "in a way that is fair, transparent and protects all consumers." She also emphasized that the utility did not utilize ratepayers to pay for the amendment's promotion.

"It's important to know that customers did not pay for the contributions or lobbying work," she said. "Dollars contributed to Consumers for Smart Solar in support of Amendment 1 came from shareholders."

Similarly to Scott, several others with influence over the state's utilities turned down interview requests from the News Journal. The Florida Public Service Commission, whose five commissioners are appointed by the governor, declined a request through Bev DeMello, the commission's assistant director.

The state's highest ranking legislative leaders also could not be reached for comment. House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O' Lakes, declined multiple interview requests. Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, did not respond to multiple requests.

But on top of the funding, critics argued other details beyond contributions signal flaws in how the state permits the utilities to operate. Debbie Dooley, chairman and founder of the group Conservatives for Energy Freedom, said in a state where Republicans hold the top executive and legislative offices, competition should have been embraced long ago.

"They need to be pressing for free-market competition in the electricity field," she said. "These monopolies are a way for the government to pick winners and losers, and that's something that conservatives should be against."

Susan Glickman, the Florida director of nonprofit organization Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, pointed to the exchanges between lawmakers and utilities that are not publicly disclosed as campaign contributions, but nonetheless carry potential to impact policy. She highlighted the recent case of Florida Power & Light and former Sen. Frank Artiles, a Republican from south Miami-Dade County who previously chaired the Senate's Communications, Energy and Public Utilities Committee.

The Herald reported in March that Artiles was flown to the Daytona 500 at the end of February on a plane owned by a Florida Power & Light lobbyist. While at Daytona Beach, he raised $10,000 at a fundraiser. The senator was photographed during the weekend sporting a jacket with "NextEra" emblazoned on the back. NextEra Energy is the utility's parent company. He also received the privilege of waving the green flag for the unofficial start of a Friday night truck race during the weekend.

As Glickman noted, favors from the flight to the fundraiser's food and drinks to waving the flag did not initially show up in Artiles' contributions report. The senator later disclosed the utility spent $2,000 on his travel, food and beverages.

"But what does it cost to wave the flag?" Glickman asked. "Surely you must have to sponsor something that has to be more than $2,000."

Artiles has since left the Senate, announcing his resignation in April. His decision to step away came after he unleashed an expletive-laced tirade at a Tallahassee bar to two other state senators that included a racial slur.

But before his tirade and resignation, his committee approved two bills in this year's legislative session sought by Florida Power & Light. The first would have overturned a Florida Supreme Court ruling and allowed utilities to charge customers for exploratory natural gas fracking in other states. Corcoran halted the bill's progression in the House, effectively killing it.

The second bill would have revised state law and conveyed exclusive authority to the state's utility commission over utilities burying power lines. In the process, it would have absolved utilities from following cities' land development rules. The bill's companion in the House failed to make it to the floor for a vote.

Despite both items falling short of the governor's signature, Glickman said the whole process with Artiles and Florida Power & Light depicts how the machine works.

"To say the utilities game the system is a fair assessment," she said.

Former Texas residents, David and Kristi Blue are disappointed by Florida's the lack of options for buying electric power in Florida.

(Photo: Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com)

It all adds up

In the end, many consumers do not factor in all the intricacies of how power plants charge for and distribute energy to buildings. Many do not ponder on the politics surrounding the process. They mostly just care about the end costs for customers and if the power comes on when it is commanded to.

But for Blue and her household, each dollar saved carries more weight.

Besides feeding mouths, purchasing new clothes for growing children and paying for other day-to-day expenses, there are also multiple appointments each week to a behavioral therapist for Blue's 11-year-old son, who has autism.

Because the family's health insurance does not cover the therapy, Blue said they pay the fees out of pocket. The costs total about $300 every week.

A family of five, such as Blue’s household, naturally consumes a fair amount of energy. That especially holds true in Florida, where the summers drive up temperatures and necessitate more air conditioning, but the more the family pays for electricity, the less funds are available for other unavoidable costs.

It is debatable to what extent deregulation drives down prices. The argument depends on which company or organization is speaking about the topic, but having lived in a state that allows for competition, Blue is convinced that having the freedom to choose her electricity provider ripples through many aspects beyond the monthly bill.

"With a family of five, trying to feed them, clothe them, an autistic child who needs therapy, medication and doctor visits, it all adds up," she said.